The Stories behind the Stories

Meet the people behind the icons, find the facts behind the legends, and discover forgotten stories you should know. These true tales turn out to be even more fascinating than the fictions that surround them. They’re almost priceless, you might say, at just $1.99 apiece for these e-books throughout November.

Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart

With her distinctive humor and style, Stewart takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes look at the flower industry and how it has sought—for better or worse—to achieve perfection. She tracks down the hybridizers, geneticists, farmers, and florists working on flowers that are bigger, brighter, and sturdier than anything nature can produce.

You can buy Flower Confidential at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, INDIEBOUND, KOBO, GOOGLE, APPLE, and POWELL’S.

On American Soil by Jack Hamann

An Italian prisoner of war was found murdered at Seattle’s Fort Lawton in 1944, and three African American soldiers were charged with first-degree murder despite the lack of any evidence. Now Hamann tells the whole story behind World War II’s largest army court-martial—a story that raises important questions about how justice is carried out when a country is at war.

You can buy On American Soil at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, INDIEBOUND, KOBO, GOOGLE, APPLE, and POWELL’S.

Notorious Victoria by Mary Gabriel

Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to address the U.S. Congress, the first to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and the first to run for president. She’s the woman Gloria Steinem called “the most controversial suffragist of them all.” Meet one of American history’s most unusual and fascinating women.

You can buy Notorious Victoria at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, INDIEBOUND, KOBO, GOOGLE, APPLE, and POWELL’S.

Boone by Robert Morgan

The story of Daniel Boone is the story of America—its ideals, its promise, its romance, and its destiny. Morgan, the bestselling and critically acclaimed author, reveals the complex character of a frontiersman whose heroic life was far stranger and more fascinating than the myths that surround it.

You can buy Boone at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, INDIEBOUND, KOBO, GOOGLE, APPLE, and POWELL’S.

Bloodsworth by Tim Junkin

Charged with the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die in Maryland’s gas chamber. A second trial also resulted in conviction. Bloodsworth read every book on criminal law in the prison library and persuaded a new lawyer to petition for then-innovative DNA testing—the evidence that vindicated him.

You can buy Bloodsworth at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, APPLE, and POWELL’S.

John Gardner by Barry Silesky

From 1973 to 1982, John Gardner was one of America’s most famous writers—and certainly its most flamboyantly opinionated. He wrote six bestsellers, picked public fights with Joseph Heller and Norman Mailer, survived what was diagnosed as terminal colon cancer, rode his motorcycle at crazy speeds, drank prodigiously, and dazzled with his charisma and genius.

You can buy John Gardner at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, APPLE, and POWELL’S.

Lincoln on War ed. by Harold Holzer

President Lincoln used his own weapons—his words— to fight the Civil War as brilliantly as any general who took the field.  Through his own writing, from speeches to telegrams, we observe a man willing to sacrifice life and treasure and even mislead the public if it meant the preservation of an unbreakable union of states and the destruction of slavery.

You can buy Lincoln on War at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and APPLE.